10. Maeve
Maeve
A scream jolts me awake.
Oisin.
I'm upright before my eyes are fully open, heart slamming against my ribs, hand already flying to the other side of the bed. Empty. The sheets are cool. Lorcan's gone.
And Oisin is screaming somewhere in this enormous, unfamiliar house.
Stupid. Stupid. I should never have let him sleep alone.
He’s three years old. It’s his first night in a strange place the size of a museum, and I tucked him into a room down the hall like everything was normal.
He probably woke up, didn't recognize the ceiling, didn't know where I was, and now he's terrified and alone, and it's my fault because I got too comfortable.
One night of sleeping on an actual mattress with a warm shoulder under my cheek, and I dropped my guard.
I'm out the door and down the hallway at a dead run, my bare feet slapping against hardwood.
His room is empty. Blankets thrown back. Bed abandoned.
My stomach drops through the floor. "Oisin!"
Another scream rips through the house—and I'm sprinting toward the sound, toward the staircase, already taking stock of every horror this place might hold. Oh god.
"HIIIIII!"
The scream bounces up the stairwell and ricochets off the high ceiling.
And then, giggling.
Uncontrollable, breathless, three-year-old giggling.
I skid to a stop at the top of the stairs, one hand clamped over my hammering heart, and look down.
Oisin stands in the middle of the grand entry hall in his footie pajamas, head thrown back, staring up at the ceiling like it's performing magic. Beside him, crouched at toddler height in a rumpled t-shirt and sweatpants, hair sticking up in every direction, is Lorcan.
"Again," Lorcan says. "Louder this time."
Oisin sucks in a huge breath, cups his little hands around his mouth the way Lorcan is clearly demonstrating, and shrieks—"HIIIIIII!"
Hi... the house answers in a faint echo.
Oisin collapses into giggles so hard he sits down right on the marble.
"See?" Lorcan spreads his arms like a man presenting a miracle. "The house talks back. My brother Declan once yelled naughty words up this staircase just to hear the house repeat every one of them. Unfortunately, Ma heard them too. He couldn't sit down for a week."
Oisin scrambles back up. "AGAIN!"
"Take a big breath. From the belly. Really give it your all.”
"HIIIIIIIII!"
I stand there at the top of the stairs in my sleep shirt, my pulse still galloping, watching my baby brother—who screamed bloody murder at the sight of this man eighteen hours ago—shriek greetings into a stairwell while Lorcan eggs him on.
The adrenaline drains out of me all at once, leaving something kind of tingly in its place.
When Lorcan glances up and catches me watching, he flashes his charming grin. "Morning, wife. We're conducting a scientific experiment."
"I can hear that. The whole zip code can hear that."
"MaeMae!" Oisin points at the ceiling with the urgency of a boy who has discovered Legos. "Da house talks!"
"I heard, baby."
Lorcan straightens, sleep-rumpled, barefoot, t-shirt wrinkled, jaw shadowed with stubble, and I hate—hate—how my insides flutter.
"He was up at six," Lorcan says.
"You should've woken me."
"Why? I had it handled." He heads for the kitchen like that settles it. And wouldn’t you know, Oisin follows behind like a baby duckling. “Come on. Deirdre's making pancakes, and if we don't hurry, Jamie's going to devour the entire stack.”
I had it handled. Four words, tossed off like nothing. The words sit strangely. The whole thing sits strangely.
The kitchen smells like heaven. Butter, bacon, coffee, something with cinnamon. Jamie is already seated at the big oak table behind a huge stack of pancakes, and Cara sits beside him, working through hers in small, precise bites, her eyes tracking everything.
At the stove, a plump woman with silver curls wields a spatula like a conductor's baton.
"There she is!" She beams at me like we're old friends.
"Sit, sit. I'm Deirdre. Been cooking for the O'Rourkes for thirty years, and let me tell you, these two,” she points the spatula at Jamie and Cara, "are the best-mannered children ever to sit at this table.
The brothers used to fight over the last pancake with actual fists.
I've got six grandkids of my own, and not one of them says thank you like your Cara does. "
I blink. Cara doesn't say thank you. Cara doesn't say anything.
Deirdre catches my look and winks. “It’s in her eyes."
My throat goes tight. Cara keeps eating, but her ears have gone pink.
I sit and, like magic, a plate lands in front of me—three pancakes, bacon, and eggs. It’s more food than I generally eat in an entire day. My reflex is to protest, to say I'll just have coffee, to save my share—but then I remember that I don’t have to do that here.
I catch Lorcan watching me with an easy, knowing look, and I pick up my fork.
I'm halfway through when I check the clock on the wall and nearly choke.
"Guys." I'm already calculating routes, transfers, minutes. "We have to go. We need to leave a half hour early today—we have to catch the crosstown to get back to the old stop in time for your school bus, so shoes on, backpacks—"
"No," Lorcan says.
I turn. He's leaning against the counter, coffee in one hand. Oisin stands beside him, mimicking his exact pose.
"Excuse me?"
“I said no. They're not riding a city bus back to that neighborhood to stand on a corner and wait for a school bus." He sips his coffee.
Heat climbs my neck. "And what exactly do you suggest? They just skip school? Because I'm pretty sure truancy will look fantastic on a DCFS report.”
"Nobody's skipping school."
"Then how, Lorcan? It's a five-mile walk. Lemme guess, you have a helicopter on the roof?"
“Johnson is driving them." The voice comes from the doorway. Kathleen stands there in a dove-gray sweater and pressed slacks, put together at this early hour like she's ready for a magazine shoot.
"To and from school," she continues, crossing to the coffee pot as if this is all long settled. "Every day, starting this morning. He's bringing the car around now.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Everything around me is moving at high speed, and I can't find the brake pedal. "That’s…Mrs. O'Rourke, that's very generous, but I can't ask—"
"You didn't ask. I offered." She pours herself a cup of coffee.
"And before you object further, my Mercedes has the highest safety rating in its class, Johnson has been with this family for years, we trust him with our lives. He’s ex-military and trained in things I won't discuss in front of the children.” She fixes me with her penetrating eyes.
"They’ll be safe. Much safer than on a school bus. "
"We're getting dropped off in a Benz?!" Jamie's voice hikes up an octave. His fork is frozen midair, syrup dripping, his whole gloomy-teenager mask blown clean off his face, and for one second he is just a fourteen-year-old boy, lit up like it’s Christmas morning.
Then he hears himself, clears his throat, slouches back down, and stabs a pancake with tremendous indifference. "I mean. Whatever. That's...fine, I guess."
"Mm," Lorcan says into his coffee, eyes dancing.
I bite the inside of my cheek. Hard. Because I know my brother, and I know he's going to spend the entire ride figuring out the exact spot to be dropped off so the maximum number of kids see him climb out of a chauffeured Mercedes. And Cara. Her eyes have gone bright and round, and there’s a soft smile on her face.
They're excited. Their bellies are full, and they’re excited.
My insides feel like they’re being pulled two directions at once—gratitude on one side and fear on the other. This is what I wanted. This is exactly what I traded myself for. So why do I feel like I’m grasping for a handhold?
"Fifteen minutes," Kathleen announces to the table, and it's remarkable, truly, how fast two children move for a woman with a stern voice and a raised eyebrow.
In the sudden bustle—Jamie thundering upstairs, Cara carefully carrying her plate to the sink first, Deirdre pressing a wrapped muffin into each backpack—Lorcan drifts over and sets Oisin down beside my chair.
"We'll head into O'Rourke's around noon," he says. "Deirdre will watch Oisin. She raised six of her own and terrorized four of us. He’s in expert hands. It’ll give you time to shower, to take a breath." His mouth tips up. "Maybe even to eat a second breakfast. I hear that's a thing."
"I'm fine."
"You're always fine. It's your most alarming quality." He gives the crease between my brows a quick tap before I can dodge him.
He grins and heads for the stairs, and I sit there in a warm kitchen that smells like cinnamon, in a mansion behind iron gates, watching my little brother chase a giggling echo down the hall while a driver pulls a gleaming black Mercedes S-Class up for a fourteen-year-old and a nine-year-old who are stuffed with a breakfast of all-you-can-eat pancakes.
I’m on a merry-go-round that's spinning so fast I can’t catch my bearings.